Posts published in “Day: October 3, 2014”

At the risk of sounding too logical the GUARDIAN questions how Boise City Councilor Maryanne Jordan plans to squeeze a 10 foot 3 inch wide city bus into a 10 foot traffic lane. In a recent letter to the ACHD, she asserted 10 feet was plenty of room for traffic lanes.
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The question arose after the Ada County Highway District board signed off on a traffic lane plan for Capitol Blvd with Chairman John Franden getting the rest of the board to agree to 11 foot traffic lanes. Jordan wrote the board asking them to reconsider their 11 foot decision and shave off one foot of each lane and donate the space to bicycles.

We found a typical bus and measured the front from mirror to mirror to establish the 10 foot 3 inch width. Even with 11 foot lanes, bus drivers have only 4.5 inches of “wiggle room” on either side in the downtown area. Pitty the poor cyclist who gets too close to a mirror in one of those tiny traffic lanes.

This latest round of bickering between Jordan and the ACHD points up an even larger issue. Boise streets, sidewalks, and blocks are rather small. New buildings like the Zions Bank really belong on at least twice the space.

The 8th Street parking garage is too small for standard size vehicles to do anything less than play “bumper cars” trying to park. The Grove Hotel is so big it intrudes into the sidewalk and forces closure of a lane of traffic. Reality dictates we need some open space downtown and that includes between cars, buses and bikes on the streets.